Today, New York State

Out of New York State, Governor Paterson is pressing the legislature to do something, despite their recent insanity of Senators hopping parties and causing a fair aneurysm for party leaders of both sides. The Senate chamber now stands at 31 Republican, 31 Democrats, after this past election swept in a Democratic majority (32-30) for the first time in something like 40 years.

But Paterson says that they are just causing problems and blocking the process of getting shit down and is demanding they do something before they recess. And today? The first thing they will be dealing with? Same-sex marriage, which already passed the House.

Looks like we may have a vote today, kids.

Just this week, Reuters announced a poll showing a majority of New Yorkers support same-sex marriage:

The poll found 51 percent of voters supported gay marriage versus 41 percent who opposed it, with 8 percent undecided.

The poll was released as a bill seeking to legalize gay marriage languishes in the State Senate due to a leadership battle between Democrats and Republicans.

New York's State Assembly passed the bill on May 12, and Governor David Paterson has vowed to sign it if it passes the Senate.

In May a Quinnipiac poll found voters split evenly at 46 percent, while in April 2004 voters opposed gay marriage by a 55 to 37 percent majority.

Perhaps we will have marriage equality in New York by the end of the week, maybe not. But we'll see. It's too bad that it's a desperate move on Paterson's behalf to make a name before himself after his pitifully low approval ratings oust him in the next round of elections.

In related news, check out these two nifty graphs from Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight.com evaluating LGBTQ rights (click on the images to go to the actual postings. The first one is general support for a wide variety of issues from 6/13/09:


The second is about the changing view of same-sex marriage by state -- ha! check out Utah at the very bottom -- from 6/11/09:

Gov. Patterson Withdraws Marriage Bill

Seriously, Gov. Patterson? After all the hooplah about personally taking it on, lobbying for it yourself, and the "what's wrong with proposing it and losing" approach?

From The New Civil Rights Movement:

In a disappointing switch, New York Governor David Paterson now says he will “go along with a plan by State Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith not to put a same-sex marriage bill to a vote without knowing it would pass.” His introduction just one week ago of a gay marriage bill, which he asked be debated in the Senate regardless of whether or not it had enough votes to pass has met with much controversy. The governor’s response last Thursday was, “Silence should not be a response to injustice, and that if we take no action we will surely lose, maybe we’ve already lost.” Well, today it seems we’re closer to losing than winning.

A bill needs 32 votes to pass. State Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith has said, “I’m very concerned about putting a bill on the floor that’s going to be symbolism and not pass… . I’m going to count until I know that I have 32, if not 34, votes.” Last week, to overwhelming applause, Paterson described lack of marriage equality as “not a crisis of issues but a crisis of leadership.” There is no set date now on when or if the bill will be introduced and voted upon.

That "crisis of leadership," Gov. Patterson, now includes you.

I wonder what was said in those back rooms. I wonder what was threatened or promised. I wonder what deal was made to end this. I'm disappointed, Gov. Patterson. You have a lot of explaining and apologies to make ...

... and I think you just lost the LGBT vote.

On the flip side, here's an acceptable scenario, which would be perfectly fine if it were true: Gov. Patterson shelves the bill with the promise of widespread support from the Democratic party and an OK on his nomination for Governor -- that is, no primary challengers. In turn, the bill gets reintroduced in the legislative session after the election with universal support by the Democratic state Senators. That would be OK, but it's not something you can build a campaign on.

From QRTY...

I wanted to apologize that I haven't been my usual active blogger self these last few days. I am in the midst of two weeks of hell on earth in terms of testing and sleeping patterns; this past weekend's a"gayest two days on earth" did not help at all, though I had fun.

But I'm still around, and I wanted to throw two fabulous things your way, both from QUEERTY...

In an article on "gay rights:"

This is something large LGBT groups don't seem to have grasped quite yet. For decades, their strategy was to win over straight America by convincing them that "we're just like you." It's not a bad strategy, but the protesters and grassroots groups have come up with a better one: "We don't care if you like us, but you must treat us as equals." Unfortunately, the institutional weight of large LGBT rights groups have made it difficult for them to adapt to this new environment, as we saw last week in their tepid non-responses to New York Gov. David Paterson's gay marriage bill announcement. Rather than supporting the move, most expressed a fear that it would not pass.

The underlying message was "We don't want to disappoint people when it doesn't happen." This is a well-meaning but patronizing response; even a loss would be a win for the gay community. Why?

Frankly, we have little to lose.

First of all, I have this one thing to say about Gov. Paterson: on the one hand, thank you saying it -- why not just propose the bill and lose? We try again next year. For that, he inspires me. On the other hand, I wonder if he would be such an adamant supporter of equal marriage if he weren't falling so far down in the polls.

Second of all, there's a lot of the world muttering about us having "turned a corner." A lot of pundits (including me, at times) are suggesting that the fight is being won, after so many years of loss. And, though I am heartened and excited about the great news coming in from all over the country, and though I expect we will see probably 1-3 more states go marriage-friendly before 2010 (mostly in New England), we need not get ahead of ourselves.

We live in Ohio -- in the political morass of "middle America." We are the definition of the swing state. We neither jump ahead of social change, nor do we fall too far behind. We are equally red, and we are equally blue. We have a DOMA, but no protections in employment in housing. We have a smattering of municipalities with protections and DP Registries, but infinitely more with nothing at all. We have abortion, but we don't like it. We supported the Iraq war, but now we're not so sure. Our economy got hit pretty hard, but not as bad as, say, Michigan or West Virginia. We're a lot of white, but we have a large African-American population, and growing Hispanic numbers. Meth and AIDS are here, but not so much as to be the public health disaster like Florida.

In short: we, as a national community, haven't turned the corner until Ohio turns the corner. I don't think we can honestly say we have an absolute win until we start overturning DOMA's in the Midwest. That's when we know it will be time to say, "Yes, we can."

A few wins in New England, me thinks, is equivocable to the far right pushing Intelligent Design in the schoolrooms of Alabama. It's to be expected.

---

And on a slightly lighter note, here's a fun picture of a half naked boy and a link where you can see more (some NSFW):

Deep thought, then shallow motives. You know me.

Thanks to @GeekJames for sending me to Queerty today

Kristen Gillibrand to fill Hillary's seat?

More and more people are reporting on this -- it appears Congresswoman Kristen Gillibrand will be named the new Senator from New York State, to fill Hillary Clinton's seat. (The original WPIX news story.)

I caught a couple blogs posting it, but it appears that, just 20 minutes ago, Huffington Post has received confirmation of it. However, with the way this has gone, Gov. Paterson has been floating a lot of balloons to see what the take on each person is, from Kennedy to Cuomo. Maybe this is a last minute smokescreen.

Gay Hudson blog called Congresswoman Gillibrand's office about her feelings on marriage equality. This was the response:

"I believe we should have a Federal law that protects all civil unions across America to ensure that gay couples have the right to visit a loved one in the hospital and be eligible for other entitled rights and benefits of committed partners.

The discussion of using the term marriage is more complicated because for many Americans it is a religious right defined as a covenant between a man, a woman and God. Since the Federal government should have no role in dictating religious affairs, I believe from a Federal and civil perspective, "civil union" should be used as the government's definition for all such relationships, including marriage."

Actually, that's a really really excellent response. I'm starting off liking this lady, but mainly because she avoided the limelight, didn't seek out media when her name was mentioned weeks ago, and seems to be a hard working politician.

Gov. Paterson has said it will be officially announced on Saturday, so we'll see.

Funny story, my blog has been flagged for "objectionable content." Grrr...

GAY STUFF: Gay Marriage in.. NEW YORK! (well, sort of)

From the Associated Press via MSNBC (original articles linked)

SAN FRANCISCO - As California set June 17 as the first day gay couples in the state may wed, a newspaper reported that New York's governor has told state agencies they should begin recognizing gay marriages performed in states and countries where they're legal.

Gov. David Paterson spoke of the changes in a videotaped message shown to gay community leaders earlier this month, The New York Times reported. He said the move is "a strong step toward marriage equality."

Paterson's legal counsel issued a written directive to state agencies on
May 14, The Times reported. The directive says there will likely need to be
changes in some agency regulations. Among those are rules affecting inheritance
rights for pensions and property.

YEA!!!! I like this new governor of New York every day more and more.

For those who aren't following, New Yorkers were one of the few groups of people, like Rhode Islanders, who could travel to Massachusetts to get married, as the two states lacked a Defense of Marriage Act or any law illegalizing gay marriage.

POLITICS: David Paterson

Congratulations, David Paterson, on your recent swearing into the NY Governorship. You bring with great experience and you break tremendous ground (only the third black governor since reconstruction and only the second legally blind governor ever). Thank you for bringing balance back to the office, and we wish you well.



PS--> Can he be our VP candidate?